Canberra Olympic hurdler Lauren Wells believes bans of up to four years for drug cheats isn't a big enough deterrent and would support a "hard-line stance" where offending athletes are rubbed out of the sport for good.

Wells, likely to fill a leadership role for Australia's athletics team at Rio, said the squad will get a huge boost out of race walker Jared Tallent's elevation to the 50km gold medal after the man who beat him in 2012, Russian Sergey Kirdyapkin, was retrospectively banned for doping.

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Race walker Jared Tallent is to be awarded an Olympic gold medal from the London Olympics after Russian Sergey Kirdyapkin is found to have used a banned substance.

Speaking before competing at this weekend's Stawell Gift, Wells said the class shown by Tallent during his three-and-a-half year fight had been "inspirational" and was a catalyst for the drug policies of a number of countries being investigated.

"Some people have had two or three doping bans and they're still competing," Wells said.